


you're my rock, my colorado

by Lihgtwood



Category: The Dark Artifices Series - Cassandra Clare, The Wicked Powers Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Kit is a butcher whose shop has been burgled, M/M, Modern AU, brooklyn 99 au, investigative hijinks ensues, ty is a detective
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-02
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:00:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 20,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24505048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lihgtwood/pseuds/Lihgtwood
Summary: Brooklyn Nine-Nine AU. Los Angeles’s best butcher shop is broken into and Kit has no choice but to turn to the LAPD. He gets more than what he bargains for.The windows are smashed in. There’s glass strewn all over the floor. In the middle of the display counter, there’s an empty spot where a $1,500 Jamon Iberico Ham used to sit.“Motherfucker,” Kit says. His dad’s going to kill him when he returns from his business trip. Kit can’t imagine that this stupid piece of pork is what delivers the final wrecking blow to their disastrous father-son relationship.
Relationships: Tiberius Blackthorn/Kit Rook
Comments: 9
Kudos: 60





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hello! i'm in the midst of transferring all my works from my tumblr over here. i started writing this in 2019 and i think i need to place a disclaimer that what with all the horrific murders and police brutality going on now in the us, we need to reexamine our perception of the police and be aware of how cop shows like b99 play a role in shaping and softening our perception of them. not that these shows are bad or anything! i think this post puts it into words more eloquently that i can ever: https://christopherslightwood.tumblr.com/post/619646765665239041 
> 
> and here are some ways you can support the cause: https://calmholland.tumblr.com/post/619484491022548992/ways-to-supportbe-an-ally
> 
> anyway, i just hope you will bear this in mind as you read this and i hope you enjoy this piece of writing :-)

The windows are smashed in. There’s glass strewn all over the floor. In the middle of the display counter, there’s an empty spot where a $1,500 Jamon Iberico Ham used to sit.

“Motherfucker,” Kit says. His dad’s going to kill him when he returns from his business trip. Kit can’t imagine that this stupid piece of pork is what delivers the final wrecking blow to their disastrous father-son relationship.

It’s the first time Rook’s Meats has been broken into. Kit supposes its because the dire need to eat Jamon Iberico Ham is not something that arises very often such that someone lobs a rock through the glass and snatches it right off the shelf.

He crouches down and picks up the rock from the ground, glaring at it like it’s the culprit. “So it’s you.” He lobs it right back into the street. “Back to where you came from.”

He sort of shuffles aimlessly in the shards of glass littered on the floor, appraising the store to see if anything else has been stolen. Sure, everything else looked in order. The assorted meats are all in their places. There’s the stupid sausage, stupid wine, stupid shakers with an unnecessary variety of seasoning. There’s the stupid cleaver, which Kit is well-acquainted enough with that the heft of his palm can fit perfectly on its handle, and the stupid apron, thrown on the counter beside it, which Kit thinks he’s donned about over a hundred times. He’s been running the store for about two years now ever since Johnny Rook decided he’d done enough with his life. He knows it like a child. An unwanted, smelly child, granted, but still a child nonetheless.

With a sigh, he takes out his phone and dials the number to the police.

“Break-in,” he tells the operator. As Rook’s Meats is an exemplary institution of fine culture, an excruciatingly fine establishment indeed, he adds, “Send your best detective over. Maybe one with a sense of humour.”

“This isn’t a pizza delivery place,” the operator answers blandly.

“Oh,” Kit says. “My bad.”

*

Kit waits at the curb in front of the shop until the police car slides to a stop in front of him. He stands up, brushes the dirt from his pants, and walks over to the car. A door opens. The detective is pale and dark-haired, looking to be around the same age as him. He’s dressed in a dark blazer and a tie, which seems unnecessarily formal, but it has an impressive effect on Kit.

“Are you Mr. Christopher Rook?” The detective asks. Up close, Kit can see his eyes are a startling shade of grey. He holds out a hand for Kit to shake.

Kit takes it. “Yeah.”

“I’m Detective Blackthorn, I’ve been assigned to your case. You say a $1,500 Jamon Iberico Ham has been stolen from your shop?”

“Woah. Blackthorn?” Kit grins. The last name catches all his attention. “Are you secretly English royalty?”

Nothing in his eyes. He’s all brusque and meaning business. Kit guesses the operator only took half his comment into consideration.

“No,” the detective says decidedly, sounding unsure if it’s a joke or not. “But the $1,500 ham has indeed been – ”

“Yes, it was the ham that was stolen. All 1,500 dollars of cured meat that is Spanish slash Portugal in nature.” Kit smiles. Shoves his hands into the pocket of his jeans.

The detective ignores him and whips out a notepad to scribble something down in it. Of course he has a notepad. All good detectives have one, and this is how Kit affirms that he is indeed the quality inspector that he ordered on the phone. Kit looks knowingly at the notepad as if to say, I noticed that you have one of those and I affirm your repertoire, but either the detective doesn’t notice it or consciously refuses to catch his eye. Fine by him.

Detective Blackthorn’s shoes are shiny. His suit is pressed and immaculate, the sharp lines of it further accentuating the contours of his face. Eyebrow, nose, cheekbone. Kit nods to himself. All very impressive indeed. Besides him Kit must look like an overgrown teenager though he suspects they’re the same age, a scrappy boy in jeans and sneakers.

He trails behind the detective as he paces around the shop, carefully sidestepping the glass and observing it to see its pattern of distribution. His gaze sweeps across the tiny butcher shop. Kit has the sense that he’s seeing something that Kit didn’t when he looked around the shop earlier. It’s in his posture: the stillness of his being, the large, watchful eyes, the finger that goes tap-tap-tap against the lip of the notepad in a peculiar rhythm. An air of concentration surrounds him that Kit is almost afraid to disturb. It’s strangely mesmerizing.

“Describe to me what you did when you left the shop.”

“Well, I washed up. I locked the front door, then the backdoor. The keys are always with me, and when they’re not, they’re hanging by the coatrack.”

“And what time did you leave?”

Kit hums in thought. “Like, around ten? Ten-ish, I guess.”

More scribbling. Kit peers over to see what he is writing, but cannot make out any words due to how small and compressed his letters are. They seem to huddle against each other in a squished sort of way. Kit would hate to have to read that. His own is slovenly and running right off the lines, written in a kind of shorthand that doesn’t really obey the rules of any shorthand.

“Any names you can give me?” The detective continues. “Anyone who has something against you, a vendetta, maybe someone you brushed the wrong way?”

Kit blows out a breath. “So many. So, so many.”

The detective stares at him.

“I’m sorry, I don’t think that all the names I’d give would fit in that notepad of yours.”

“Perhaps just the important names,” suggests the detective.

“Hm.” Kit thinks for a while. “Well, there’s another butcher’s shop across the street that we have a rivalry with.”

“What’s the name of the owner?”

“Kevin. McGee.” A pause. “Unfortunate, I know.”

Detective Blackthorn’s mouth folds into a straight line. He turns away. “Well, thank you, Mr. Rook, that’s all the help I need from you. I’ll take it from here. I will do my best to ensure that the culprit is found. Crime scene photographers will come round in a minute.”

“Kit,” Kit says, just as the detective is about the leave the shop. He doesn’t know what makes him say it, chalks it up to the usual stupidity. “Christopher makes me sound like a stuffy asshole. Yuck. Or a character from Winnie-the-Pooh. Call me Kit.”

A pause. “Sure,” the detective says. “See you around.”


	2. Chapter 2

Once the broken glass in the shop is repaired, Kit removes the red and white hazard tape affixed across the entrance of the shop and finally turns over the closed sign. One or two customers will wander in and ask for something to make a dish for some sort of gathering. Kit throws a pound of meat on the counter and slices the cleaver through it neatly. A good butcher will let the knife glide through perfectly, feel it slice through as a seamlessly as a dolphin cutting through waves. And if he’s in a good mood, he’ll throw in some marrow for stock, free of charge. What the people don’t know is that the trick with stock is to roast the bones first to get some caramelized flavour going, then to slowly heat them in water until a bare simmer, and then let them cook that way, gently, for a good long time.

Kit has been doing this for quite some time. Not butchering, no, that he’s only done for two years. Cooking is something that goes way back to when he was a child, when he would have to tiptoe to breathe in a whiff of the aroma of whatever was cooking in Johnny Rook’s saucepan as he shifted it this way and that on the stove. It’s not that the food that Rook cooked was good. In fact, it was pretty shit. Mostly leftovers from last night jumbled up and cooked into something approaching edible, but somehow, it’s always piqued his interest. Kit loves the sound of the sizzle and snap of oil on a frying pan, the sharp aroma of spices as he garnishes a piece of food. There’s something calming about it, something that reminds him of home, or at least, an idea of home.

And the meat, of course, is stellar. They’re a butcher family after all. Rooks know how to season meat the way no one else knows how.

One of his regulars, Hypatia, smiles at him as she takes the package of ham that she orders, three hundred grams. She’s also a colleague of his father.

“Just you today?”

“Yup.” Kit smiles weakly.

“Where’s Rook?”

“Business trip.”

Her eyes narrow to slits. “He still owes me money.” A pause. “I heard there was a break-in.”

“Yeah, there was. Expensive piece of ham stolen. Very unlucky.”

“Karma,” she hisses. “That’s what I say. It’s good that your father gets what he deserves sometimes, it’ll keep him in check. A piece of advice. Don’t bring the police into this. It’s best not to when Rook’s involved.”

“It’s a bit late for that,” Kit says, just as the bell tinkles and Detective Blackthorn walks into the shop, hair mussed and wind-tousled. Kit’s heart jumps for some reason, surprising himself, but he quickly sweeps it to the back of his head. At this point it’s been so long since his last relationship, a gust of wind could make him grow anxious. He refocuses. There’s an LAPD medallion hanging around the detective’s neck. It’s a bit ostentatious, Kit thinks. It’s all shiny and in your face, as if he really, really, really wants the whole world to know that he’s a professional in law enforcement. Not like the crisp suit and shiny shoes and notepad aren’t enough to go by. The ink-black curls and sharp eyes. It’s these details that he can’t stop hyper-focusing on for some unknown reason.

Hypatia glances at the detective, eyes zeroing in on the shiny medallion, then she whirls around back at Kit.

“Very dangerous,” she whispers. Her eyes are bulging. “I’m out.” She grabs her parcel of meat and exits the shop in a flash. She’s always been a peculiar character.

Detective Blackthorn steps forward, clearing his throat. “Hello.”

Kit nods. “Hey.” He stows the knives away, peels the gloves from his hands, and washes up.

“I’ve spoken to Joe’s Butchery from across the street,” Detective Blackthorn says, “So far, nothing. The owner and his son have solid alibis, so we’re trying to pull CCTV camera footage. I was wondering if there were any cameras here.”

The thought of Johnny Rook planting cameras around his shop almost makes him laugh. If he did, it’d be hard to say who the footage would incriminate. The rock thrower or Johnny. Kit has seen him counting stacks of cash behind the counter and tossing it in a duffel bag, profits from his latest con job.

“None here,” Kit says. “It’s hard to believe those bastards from Joe’s are innocent. If anyone did it, it’s them.”

“Kevin McGee and his son Louis were at a family gathering that night when the store got broken into. They couldn’t have done it.”

“Hm,” Kit says contemplatively as he towels off. “Any potential suspects?”

“We’re looking into other butcher shops in the vicinity or even restaurants. We’re also looking to see if the ham pops up online.”

“Bastards,” Kit says again. “I bet if I ransacked their fridge now I would find the ham. It’s so obviously them. They threatened my dad before.”

“So obviously?” Detective Blackthorn raises an eyebrow. He looks disconcerted, as if Kit’s passing comment has really bothered him. “You can’t deny the facts. It’d be impossible for them to be in the vicinity of the shop.”

Kit draws his eyebrows together in thought. “But sometimes, there’s just a lot of hidden bullshit that goes on behind the scenes, you know? Maybe they paid someone off. Or maybe they are lying and they got their family members to lie for them. Or maybe, they’re just a bunch of bees hiding beneath an overcoat and half of the bee army was at their family dinner and the other half was lobbing a rock through my shop’s window.”

Detective Blackthorn stares blankly at him. “Occam’s Razor. Heard of it? Simpler solutions are more likely to be correct than complex ones.”

Kit scoffs. “Well, clearly Occam doesn’t live in Los Angeles. Occam doesn’t know shit.”

The detective raises an eyebrow. “I’d argue that Occam was an English Franciscan friar, scholastic philosopher, and theologian, and was considered to be one of the major figures of medieval thought. So, he knows, at least, some shit.”

“Alright fine, some shit,” Kit concedes. “But not about the McGees. They’re… they’re definitely guilty.”

“We’ll have to see about that.”

The detective pushes off the counter and paces around the shop, glancing around.

“What do the McGees have against your shop?”

Kit folds his arms. “Our shop does better. Our meats are fresher and better cut, there’s a greater selection, and our meat is cruelty free. We’re good in our hospitality. We’ve got loyal customers. And also, we’re the better father-son butcher pair. They’re jealous of our killer dynamic.”

A corner of the detective’s lips twitches upwards. “I wonder.”

“It’s actually true,” Kit says very seriously.

“Alright. Fine,” Detective Blackthorn says, the look in his eyes conveying that he doesn’t, even for a second, believe Kit, or even pause to ponder to possibilities of the McGees’ apian identity. He flips out his note pad, scribbles something down and slides it across the counter to Kit. “Here’s my number. Call if there are future developments. Or, well, if you have any more great ideas.”

Kit grins. “I sure will.”

There’s his tiny and compressed handwriting etched across the paper. It kind of makes Kit’s eyes hurt just from looking at it. Kit considers this, then doesn’t stop to think when the next words come out his mouth.

“So, what do I save this number as?”

A sharp eyebrow arches. “What?”

“Well, you already know to call me Kit, and it’d be weird to save it as,” he puts on a mock-imperious tone, “Detective Blackthorn. Order of the British Empire, by the Royal Queen Her Majesty – ”

“Ty,” the detective interrupts, two spots of red sitting atop his cheekbones. “My name is Ty Blackthorn. You can save it as that.”

“Awesome.” Kit smiles good-naturedly. “Have a good one, detective.”

The detective looks at him in cautious bewilderment mixed with annoyance. He nods stiffly. The bell tinkles as the door closes behind him, and Kit furls and unfurls the piece of paper with his number for a few minutes, thinking about absolutely nothing at all, before remembering that he has to key it into his phone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kit enjoying cooking (which is an element of home) in his pursuit of/desire for a 'home' when he doesn't have one. subconsciously, he's trying to compensate for the lack of it which he feels like a loss in his life. vs ty having more than just a home. he has six siblings and the household is always brimming with love & laughter :( ah parallels


	3. Chapter 3

Kit’s finger constantly hovers over the call button next to the detective’s name. It’s not like he’s gotten his number, like got gotten his number and is expecting to go on a date or something like that. It’s purely professional and part of the procedure. He’s been staring across the street at the McGees, hoping for one or two of them shady bastards to do something suspicious so that he’d have something to report back, but the moments are few and far between. It’s just the usual routine, the banal inflow and outflow of customers.

It’s a bit embarrassing. In fact, this inanity is one of the reasons why his past relationship failed. Calista told him in weary tones, just before they broke up, that he never took anything seriously. She said their relationship was fine and all, but when the time came to it to be serious and settle down, he couldn’t live up to her standards. Kit was only good for parties, she said.

Kit supposes its true. The lack of stability that a nuclear family unit would’ve provided for him is perhaps one of the reasons why. When it’s just him and Johnny Rook jumping from town to town every year, it’s not a surprise that in the face of responsibility and security and stability, Kit doesn’t just turn away, he runs.

“Hello?” Hypatia hisses.

Kit breaks from his careful observation of Kevin McGee as he takes out the trash.

“Hm?”

He startles, his attention jerked back, and quickly gathers the ends of the strings together to tie the bloody pound of meat in a knot.

“Your mind’s off somewhere… far away beyond the realm of the physical… what haunts the temple of your mind, Kit?”

“Oh, nothing much. Just life in general.”

“You were clearly ogling the butcher opposite… the mind wants what it cannot have…”

“Hey!” Kit protests. “I was not. I’d shoot myself in the eye first.”

“I am not one to judge what the mind wants,” she slithers. “Like, for example, the policeman that came in here the other day.”

“What? Not true.”

“Mr. Detective, no? I could sense your chakras… vibing…”

“Thanks, Hypatia, but I’ll pass on the psychic reading session that I didn’t ask for. Where did you get your degree in mind-reading from, by the way?”

“You look at him like you look at organic meat. Freshest cut. Best cow.”

“First of all, you’re not making any sense. Secondly, I just enjoy irritating him and thirdly – why am I even bothering to explain this to you?”

He quickly finishes tying the package and punches in several numbers in the register. “Fifty dollars.”

“Fifty dollars?” she exclaims. “Reconsider.”

“Standard price.”

“The butcher opposite charges less.”

“Well,” Kit says, “enjoy having worms in your meat.”

“You’re not a nice person.”

“Fifty or nothing. Your dinner parties would be nothing without me.”

“Wait till I find someone to replace you,” she grumbles and slaps a fifty on the table. “I’ll be on the lookout for someone new.”

“Good luck with that.”

And she scurries out of the shop in her usual eccentric fashion.

Well, she’s not completely wrong. They did, in a sense of the word, vibe, and Kevin McGee is indeed selling meats at a price far below what could enable him to make a profit. Purely business, Kit reminds himself. He picks up the phone and, after only a bit of hesitation, dials the detective.

**

He’s in a coffee shop just a few blocks away. Kit told him that he couldn’t meet at the shop because tomorrow is a public holiday and the shop’s closed, so this is how Thursday afternoon finds him waving the detective over to where he’s sitting.

This time, the detective’s medallion is hidden snugly beneath the jacket that he has on, away from plain sight. It is a cold morning. Kit’s brought a jacket himself. Up close, Kit can see a tinge of redness on the tip of the detective’s nose.

“So what is this about?”

“I have some curious information you might want to look into.”

“Oh?” says the detective, settling in. “Like what?”

“Joe’s Butchery is selling their meats way below the normal price. It should have them making a loss, but they’re still surviving. There must be something going on.”

“Hmm,” he contemplates. “Interesting.” He whips out the notepad to do some classic note-taking again. “So you suspect the ham fits into this narrative somehow because…”

“Because they sell the stolen ham through backdoor deals, which enables them to make the bulk of their profit. They don’t even need to care about their legal deals.”

“Right.” The detective sounds deep in thought. He’s got a thinking face on, which looks like narrowed eyes, pursed lips, a hand notched under his chin. Sitting in front of him, Kit feels like he’s looking at the bust of an ancient philosopher, chiseled from marble, but warmer, softer, and thrumming with vitality. He looks like elegant aristocracy, painted with the deftest hand. Kit can’t help but feel the corners of his lips turn up. “But –” he says suddenly, and Kit’s gaze immediately skips to the handle of his coffee mug. “Relying on backdoor deals of stolen poultry items to carry the business implies a certain level of sustainability. There have been no cases of stolen poultry in the area.”

“Oh. Well, fuck.”

“Although perhaps the low price is signalling something else…” the detective continues, rattling off a string of scenarios that Kit can’t quite follow.

“My thoughts exactly,” he interjects, nodding, hands steepled in front of him.

“Of course.” The detective scribbles something in his notepad again. His pen moves across the paper very slowly, like he’s spending a lot of time and effort into ensuring the words come out neat, only to reveal to Kit, once his hand comes away from the paper, a wobbly line of words. It’s endearing.

The detective sits back. There’s an awkward silence.

“Well, if there’s nothing more, I have to get back from my lunch break.”

“'Course, course. We all have to get back to our jobs. You: detective, me: butcher slash vigilant civilian. I will keep my eye on those shady bastards and I’ll update you if there’s anything upsetting. Ten four.” He salutes the detective.

The detective stands, holding out a hand for Kit to shake.

Kit stands and takes it.

“Good day, detective,” he says in the most professional voice he can muster.

The detective nods. “See you around sometime, maybe.”


	4. Chapter 4

“You keep calling me.”

They’re at the shop, a week later, all because Kit saw one of the McGee men throw a black bag into the bin and thought he should inform Detective Blackthorn of this extremely suspicious activity.

“Well, what can I say? I am very invested in the safety of this ham.”

“I quite regret giving you my number now.”

“I’m sorry, but this just seemed too important not to give you a call. It’s a black bag. Conveniently ham-sized. Seems like this could be the evidence we need.”

The detective shakes his head. He seems to be doing that a lot with Kit.

“We’ll see about that,” he says, as they make their way to Joe’s Butchery. The chilly October winds make Kit shove one hand into the pocket of his jeans in search of warmth. The other carries a steaming cup of coffee, white wisps pouring from the mouth of the cup. He and the detective stand around idly at the traffic junction as they wait for the light to flicker green.

Maybe the dry business days where Kit is left to twiddle his thumbs at the counter is what makes his fingers so trigger happy to press the call button besides the detective’s name. Either that, or his strange penchant for getting under his nerves. He doesn’t know why. There’s something satisfying about seeing his pale eyes light up and hearing his fervent defense of the pillars of logic, which Kit seems so determined to break down.

One thing that Kit notices about the detective is that he seems to have a fondness for fiddling with his fingers. It’s after some observation that Kit has noticed that he’s always rubbing circles into the pad of his thumb, or drumming his fingers on any kind of surface. He’s doing it now.

Kit wants to ask about it but the red circle of light switches to green and the wave of people around them surge forward across the crossing, sweeping the two of them along. Kit hurries to keep up with the detective’s long strides.

“Are you busy at work?” Kit asks.

“Why do you ask?”

“Hope I’m not bothering you or anything. This piece of ham is important and all, but I don’t wanna keep you from doing some important work stuff, y’know?”

The detective shakes his head. Black curls fall over his forehead.

“Not really. You’re my only open case right now.”

Kit makes a noise of surprise. “Oh.”

“I’m new, so they don’t assign me any cases until I’ve closed my first one.”

“You’re new,” Kit echoes, surprised. “I didn’t know.”

The detective sighs. “That’s nice to hear. My superiors are looking at me like the freshie who can’t close the case of the missing pork.”

“But it’s not even been that long!”

He shrugs. “The case is supposed to be a quick solve.”

“I’ll help you,” Kit resolves with newfound determination, “I’ll – I’ll try my best to help you close this case as quickly as possible.”

The detective cracks a smile. Kit realizes it’s the first one he’s seen from him, though it’s barely the slight upward tilt of the corners of his lips. “That’s nice of you to.”

“I swear I will,” Kit continues, babbling on. “We’re going to stomp over to the McGees, tear down their little butchery, grab them by their filthy shirts – ”

“Kit,” the detective says. It’s the first time he’s used his name. For a brief moment, Kit’s shocked into speechlessness. “We’re here.”

Indeed they are. Kit has to take a moment to orient himself. How did everything happen so quickly? He barely remembers stepping off the pavement and here he is, in front of a shop with a sign that clearly reads Joe’s Butchery in droopy lettering.

The detective’s already pushing the door open. Kit hurries behind him.

For a butcher’s shop, the interior is less than satisfactory. The store arrangement is cluttered and claustrophobic, with no proper arrangement of the items on the shelves. Kit could do everything better, he thinks to himself, glancing snobbishly around the shop. Behind the counter, Kevin McGee stands, eyes widening as he stares at Kit.

“Rook’s son,” he growls distastefully. “What are you doing here?”

“I just… came to get some steak sauce,” he says, grabbing a bottle off the shelf.

“Ran out of sauce in your own shop? No money to pay the supplier?” McGee says snidely.

“Just wanted to see what sauce is like where the grass is… less green,” Kit says.

McGee growls. Kit glares. It’s the usual routine.

The detective has been very quiet.

“Can I use the restroom?”

McGee narrows his eyes. “In the back.”

The detective makes himself scarce. Kit wanders around some more, taking his time, much to the irritation of McGee. There’s a corner of the shop where a light bulb has blown.

“Ever thought about calling the electrician?” Kit calls. “Goodness, man, how do you upkeep your store?”

“Shut your mouth.”

The detective comes out a moment later, shaking his head slightly. No go. Kit heart sinks. He was sure it was them.

Kit pays for the steak sauce, scowling.

“Aren’t you supposed to be a shittier person?”

McGee bares his teeth. “Send my regards to your dad.”

Kit shoots him one more glare before turning and exiting the shop.

“What did you find?”

Ty hands his phone over, showing him pictures. “Empty boxes of hair growth serum.”

Kit groans, wiping a hand over his face. “Who knew the bastard was self-conscious about his bald spot. And in the storeroom?”

“Nothing suspicious. Other than, well, hygienically, of course. Why is there only one toothbrush in the holder when there are two guys?”

Kit lets out a longer groan.

“We’re onto the wrong guys,” the detective says. “It’s time to move on.”

“Move on indeed,” Kit says bitterly. “There isn’t any hope now. The McGees were our best bet. For all we know, the ham’s probably on a freight train to Ukraine. Or at the bottom of a toilet bowl. No one can resist the flavour of a Jamon Iberico for that long.”

As is his usual fate of horrible luck, Kit’s shoe catches on a ridge in the pavement and he trips. Karmic consequences, as Hypatia would put it. Not enough for total land-on-his-ass embarrassment, but enough for the hot coffee to slosh out of his cup and spill all over the detective’s crisp white shirt in ugly brown blotches.

Kit’s mouth opens and closes soundlessly like a fish. He swallows, tries again. No sound.

To be fair, there isn’t anything to say. The detective is frozen on the spot, looking down at the mess on his shirt. Utter mortification sends blood rushing to Kit’s cheeks.

Finally his voice kicks in: “Oh, gosh, I am so so sorry.”

The detective clears his throat. Tersely.

“Fuck.” Kit’s hand goes up to pull at his hair, as if he cannot quite imagine the dire and thorough way he has absolutely and incontrovertibly fucked up. “I – I tripped on the pavement. I didn’t see that there was a bump and my shoe – my fucking shoe – ”

“Kit.”

His voice cuts through Kit’s spiel like a knife through cake. Kit almost jumps.

“It’s fine. Just – is there any way I can clean up?”

“The shop!” Kit blurts out in excitement at having an answer. Then he mellows immediately. “The shop, as I was saying, is open. It’s just across the street. Come on.”

Kit quickly throws the coffee cup into the nearest bin he can find, not wanting to be reminded of the incident anymore.

The worst part about this is that he can’t tell if the detective’s mad or not. A first glance tells him that the detective’s awfully pissed. His face has shuttered, devoid of the previous liveliness that Kit saw at the coffee shop the other day. But, isn’t that the detective typically? It’s just that the other day was something – something else altogether, a rare moment where Kit catches him smiling and – his mind is going down the wrong path. Anyway, Kit vacillates between feeling terrified that the detective’s downright angry at him, and nervously at ease when he convinces himself that perhaps the detective’s not that angry at him anymore.

They walk in silence. Kit plays this game with himself until they reach the shop.


	5. Chapter 5

“Come in, come in,” Kit says, after fumbling with his key and pushing the door open. The bell chimes as the two of them step into the store. Kit brings Ty past the door that says STAFF ONLY and leads him up a narrow staircase that brings him to the small, cramped quarters of him and his father. It’s just enough for the two of them and since Johnny Rook isn’t home half the time, it’s more than enough for Kit. There’s a television, a lumpy sofa, a kitchenette, and an eternally stocked pantry.

On seeing the complete and utter haphazard arrangement of things, Kit kicks into action and starts sweeping away all the rubbish lay strewn about on the coffee table. It looks like the dwellings of a teenage boy.

Kit kicks at a pile of dirty laundry. He can feel the detective’s wary stare on everything. Things aren’t helping his appearance at all.

“To be fair, everything looks messy, but in actuality everything is at a very specific place to serve a very specific purpose. Organised chaos,” he defends. He feels very exposed all of a sudden. “Toilet’s there, first door to your right.”

He’s still silent. Ty Blackthorn stiffly sets his things down and starts to peel his blazer off himself.

“Let me help you with that,” Kit says quickly, still urgent to make amends. He pulls the blazer off Ty’s shoulders and his finger is just about to hook the chain holding his medallion against Ty’s chest when Ty catches his wrist in between slender fingers. His touch is warm. Strange, Kit expects him to feel like ice.

“I’m fine, thank you. I can handle this myself.”

Kit’s hand springs away, coming up to rub the back of his neck. He laughs awkwardly.

“Okay. I’ll be out here if you need me.”

Ty nods. He goes to the bathroom. Silently, Kit prays that he doesn’t find anything incriminating.

Kit hangs a clean dress shirt he finds in his drawer on the doorknob for Ty and goes to the kitchen to get a glass of water. Then he turns on the television to reruns of Friends and cranks the volume a little louder than he normally listens to it to drown out the noise of his frantic cleaning up. What a mistake it is to invite a detective into their house. Kit makes sure to clear every trace of Johnny he can find. He stows all the stupid fridge magnets that Johnny brings home from his business trips, a vast assortment of magnets from all over the world, Philippines, Bali, Russia, Mombasa, Nepal, Spain, countries that Kit doesn’t dream of visiting if he came from a normal family, in a drawer. He closes the door to his father’s room. He crumples up and throws away post it notes tacked onto the wall: Out on business. Don’t wait up for me.

The note is from three months ago and the ink is already fading. Kit wasn’t there when his father left and he doesn’t know when he will be back. His father inhabits the house like a ghost. Kit only knows his presence through small things, things like messy bed sheets and mugs left lying around, lights left turned on and items like picture frames or lamps which Kit sets right one day and finds askew another.

In truth, he sees his father so little, Kit is not sure that even if caught, he will be able to describe Johnny to a sketch artist.

The door opens, shaking Kit from his bitter reverie.

The detective steps out in Kit’s shirt. His own limbs are longer than Kit’s, so the sleeves end slightly above the wrist.

“How’s the fit?” Kit asks.

“Tight,” the detective says. He shifts around uncomfortably. “But it’ll do.”

“Lotta great memories in that shirt. I took my senior prom date out in that shirt.”

Ty tries to straighten out the wrinkles of his shirt. “And never worn again, I see, judging from the sheer definition of the creases in this shirt.”

Kit pauses. It’s such an odd thing to say. It’s not said with censure, for sure, the detective is looking at him steadily as if he is making nothing more than an observation. But strip away the confusing earnestness and guileless gaze, inject ten litres of sarcasm, and it’s such an awfully Kit thing to say. He’s surprised he doesn’t think of it first. A smile splits his face open before Kit can help himself.

“Not really a suit and tie guy myself.” Kit gestures to his own shirt-and-jeans-and-sneakers ensemble. “Work, chill, and formal.”

Ty looks amused. He turns his gaze to Kit’s apartment.

“Do you live here by yourself?”

“Me and my dad,” Kit says. “But he rarely comes home. He’s always out and about.”

“Oh. What does he do?”

“Businessman. Entrepreneur. Or some muddle of the two things,” Kit says carefully. “If he was home more enough to tell me more about it, I’d be more clear on it.”

“Huh,” Ty says. Not quite a lie, yet hardly the truth. Ty is quiet, seemingly turning this information over in his mind.

“Coffee? Tea? Anything I can get you?” Kit asks quickly, eager to steer the conversation away, but the detective seems to only have half his mind on him.

He wanders to the bookshelf where deep within the shelf, hidden in a crevice, is an old framed picture of himself and Johnny. Kit curses. He forgot that was there. He wonders how the detective even managed to spot it. Kit scrambles to join Ty.

“Oh! Yeah, that’s me and my dad. My mom passed away when I was really young.”

The photograph hasn’t been touched for so long it’s begun to collect a remarkable amount of dust. Beneath the musty glass, little Kit has an arm slung over Johnny’s neck, wearing a big smile that made his cheeks full. They were at the zoo. The photograph is so old that all the colour has bled out of it, so Kit’s blonde hair takes on a shade reminiscent to expired pasta. His father was young back then and smiling. Kit suppresses the urge to say, how ironic.

“Do you have any siblings?” Ty asks.

“Nope,” Kit says. “Only child. Just me and my dad.”

Ty considers this. “I have six siblings myself.”

Kit turns to gape at him. “No way. The house must never be quiet.”

“Never is,” Ty agrees. He considers the photo even more. Kit has the sense that he is scrutinizing it carefully, as though with a jeweler’s eye, with the same acute precision that is able to detect minuscule, hair-like fissures on the surfaces of rocks and determine if they are precious or worthless.

And Kit doesn’t know if he can bear up under the strength of his gaze. He’s not sure if his entire crooked past has been parsed from this shitty, prehistoric photo, wonders if the detective is looking at Kit and making his own verdict silently. Precious or worthless. Good or bad. All-seeing eyes, looking through Kit as though he is as transparent as glass.

“You don’t look like your father,” Ty says, curious.

“Yeah,” Kit says, “People say I looked more like my mother.”

“Do you miss her?” Ty asks softly.

Kit blows out a breath, heavy with emotions that he can’t put a name to. “You can’t miss someone you’ve never met.”

The detective gives the photograph one last look and turns away. The weight on Kit’s chest disappears. He gathers his things from the table and loops his LAPD medallion around his neck again. It thumps against his chest, winking back up at Kit. “I should be going. I have a full agenda of things at work.”

“Of course.” He rushes to open the door. Relief floods Kit as he guides the detective out of dangerous territory. “I’m so sorry to have taken up so much of your time. I didn’t mean – ”

They go down the flight of narrow stairs. The detective’s legs are long and he takes the steps by twos. In a moment, they’re at the storefront. The bell jingles for the second time as Kit holds the door open for the detective to step out into the pavement, straighten his tie, and gaze back at him.

“—spilled my coffee,” Kit says, finally reaching the end of his long apologetic rambling. He has to break off to draw a breath to say the next bit. “Forgive me? Don’t transfer my case to your colleague because you hate my face and don’t want to see me ever again?”

He plasters on his best smile. Might as well try his luck.

The detective smiles. It’s small, but something in Kit’s chest leaps when he sees it. It’s not a light-up-your-whole face kinda smile, but it’s close to it, a crack of light through a closed door, hinting more.

“I’m not going to do that,” Ty says. “It’s fine. A minor inconvenience. I just hope I can solve the mystery of the missing ham and close this case quickly. For the both of us.”

“Yeah. Totally,” Kit says. He hopes the slight falter in his voice is inaudible.

“I do want to help you,” Ty continues. Sincerity rings in his voice.

For one brief, terrifying moment, Kit feels himself soften. It’s not something he’s used to. So comfortable he is with the permanent walls erected around him, so long since he’s last let someone in.

Kit laughs weakly. “I appreciate that a lot.”

Ty Blackthorn reaches to stick his hand out. Surprised, Kit looks at it for a moment, then takes it. They shake on it. A good, professional shake. Kit’s hand comes back warm. He shoves it in his pocket.

“Thanks for the shirt.” The detective lifts a hand in gratitude.

“No problem, come anytime!” Kit calls out. He stays at the storefront and watches the detective walk all the way down the street until he makes a right and disappears.

Kit puts on his apron. He straightens it, fixes his hair and prepares for customers.

“Interesting day,” he tells himself, in the most casual voice he can.

(He fails.)


	6. Chapter 6

After this turn of events, LA seems to get its shit together. The city seems to have cleared its throat, straightened its jacket and pulled up its socks, expelling every toxin and irregularity from its system. Everyone here is suddenly an upstanding, law-abiding citizen with not the slightest inclination to criminality. Kit can’t sniff out a trace of crime and suspicion even if he really wanted to. No crime, no reason to call the detective.

The days pass by in a crawl, inching forth with a kind of lethargy. Kit always finds his fingers drifting to his phone. It’s strange, it’s not a behavior he can decipher himself. It’s not that he likes the detective or has fallen in love with him – what a stupid thing it would be for him to do so, practically an invitation for him to land an all-expenses paid exclusive stay at LA’s finest prison – it’s just a niggling urge to hear his voice. Persistent thoughts crowd at the forefront of his mind: what is he doing, what is he wearing, how is he feeling? so much so that he can’t focus on anything. When he hands Hypatia her weekly order of meat and she quirks an eyebrow and opens her mouth, he interrupts her before she can deliver some inaccurate divinity about his non-existent love life.

“No. No,” Kit says firmly.

“What?” She says, defensively.

“I know what you’re gonna say.”

He drops the meat on the counter with a little too much vigour.

“You know what,” she says, all-wise and knowing, with the eccentricity of someone who Kit doesn’t want to know does in their free time (animal sacrifice is Kit’s best bet). “The fact that you think you already know what I’m going to say paints you out to be a guilty man.”

Though Kit rolls his eyes and threatens to increase her price of meat if she continues on about it, his thoughts linger on her words for a more than acceptable amount of time.

Monday is a slow day again. There’s only one or two people ambling about the shop, browsing through the sauce section. Of course Kit’s hand wanders, inevitably, to the dial button next to the detective’s name. He knows he shouldn’t. Civilians aren’t even supposed to be involved in their cases. They’re just supposed to hand their case to the bluecoats, wait patiently until their case is solved, and only then do they appear to thank the detective, cry a little bit, smile at the camera, and cue end of episode – according to CSI, Elementary, Broadchurch, and all the other detective shows he’s watched.

But a Kit with too much time on his hands and no one to prevent him from acting on his impulsive decisions can bode no good.

Before he knows it, the phone’s to his ear and the humdrum dial tone starts, going on and on in his ear in circles. Kit leans his hip against the counter lazily, running his teeth over his lip without thinking and wondering what he should say.

Afternoon sun filters in through the storefront, casting golden panes across the counter.

“Am I bothering you right now?” Kit asks when there’s a click on the other end of the line.

“Well, I am in the middle of something,” Ty says from beneath a crackle of static. There’s the sound of an office in the backdrop, the sound of people working: the ringing of phones, the chatter of discussion, the clicking of keyboards. “I’m currently working on your case.”

“Sounds to me everyone’s got their plate full. So, any spicy developments? Food puns not intended,” Kit adds on as a second thought. “I am just that talented.”

“I see,” the detective notes. “Not really, everything is still a work in progress. For now it’s just monitoring.”

“Huh,” Kit says, disappointed. “That ham was a real asset to our team. A real important player. Now that it’s gone, I dunno, I feel a ham-shaped hole in my heart.”

“I assure you we are doing all we can to locate this ham.”

“Hm,” Kit hums. He picks up an apple from the counter. He throws it, catches it, throws it, thinking. There’s a brief silence.

“Did you have anything else to tell me?” The detective asks after a while.

“Not really,” Kit admits. Pause. “Are you doing anything fun tonight?”

A long-suffering sigh. “If this isn’t work related –”

“No, wait –” Kit quickly says. His eyes dart around the shop. “I was just going to report to you that I think there may be another theft in the shop.”

He can feel the detective perk up on the other end of the phone.

Kit lowers his voice, dark and conspiratorial.

“She’s in the shop now… she’s moving stealthily. She looks as though she’s a Bolshoi ballerina, trained by the KGB in traceless assassination, deadly but beautiful.”

Unamused silence.

“I think I see the outline of nunchucks in her pocket, wait, she’s headed towards me, I’m her next target!” Over the phone, Kit carefully eyes the small old woman as she slowly trundles over to the counter with her pushcart. “Oh no! She’s going for the jugular – ” Kit brings the phone away from his mouth to say, “Cash or card, ma’am?”

“Cash,” the old woman replies genially.

Clamping the phone between his ear and his shoulder, Kit bags the sauce for her and hands her the change.

“I’m celebrating my grandson’s birthday today!” She adds with a toothless smile. Kit grins and waves at her as she exits the store.

“Kit Rook,” the detective deadpans loudly.

“Right, fortunately that was just a drill and it was just old Mrs. Hawkins. But if it’d been the real deal, I’d be really, truly dead in seconds. Do you offer personal bodyguard services?”

An exasperated sigh, though infused with hints of laughter. Kit keeps a mental scoreboard in his head: Kit one, universe zero, and does a little pump with his fist in the air in victory. He wishes he’s there to see him, perhaps flushed and biting down on a smile, on the cusp of breaking his carefully kept Ty Blackthorn’s No-Smile policy.

“I have to go,” the detective finally says.

“Stay and talk to me,” Kit pleads. “I’m not all that boring, am I? There’s no one down here at the store and I’m bored half my wits off.”

“I do actually have work,” the detective says matter-of-factly, though Kit thinks he hears slight reluctance in his voice. It’s so hardly distinguishable that Kit thinks he hears it for a second then loses it in the shitty phone static, leaving him wondering if it’s just his wishful thinking or not. “The Jamon Iberico won’t find itself.”

An undeniable feeling of disappointment fills his chest. So it’s just Kit and hunks of raw meat then. Fine. “Alright, then nevermind.”

Just as he’s about to give up, wave a white flag to the forces of the universe and the silent chunks of meat chilling in the freezer which are Kit’s only friends at this point, the detective says, “But you know what? Next time there’s a lead, we can chase it together.”

Kit brightens up immeasurably. One moment his heart plunges and the next it soars, Kit feels like a marionette bouncing along to the cadence of Ty’s words, caught in the strings of his heart. He tries his best to believe that he is not what Hypatia says he is – a very, very stupid man. There’s a tiny bit of unease in his chest, but he lets a shit-eating grin crawl up his face anyway.

Detective Blackthorn, submitting to the wiles of his persuasion? Kit must be more powerful than he thinks.

“I’ll take you up on that offer.”

“Great,” the detective says with a note of finality, as if they have agreed to a date and a place and a time, though nothing is agreed upon and Kit is fairly sure he’s not supposed to be tagging along. Everything about this screams bad and not a good idea, but – and how can he put it nicely – he doesn’t quite give a shit. He wants to imagine a smile on the other end of the phone that mirrors his own but there’s no way to know. “Now can I get back to work?”

Kit laughs. “Of course. Carry on, detective.”


	7. Chapter 7

This is how he ends up at the Hudson Pier in Los Angeles, rushing to meet the detective at their designated meeting point, hands shoved into his pockets in an effort to shield them from the cold. It’s an overcast day. The sky is pale and puckered with clouds, foreboding a storm. Squabbles of seagulls fly overhead, squawking. Though there are fewer people at the pier than there would be on a sunnier day, the pier still boasts no small crowd. It’s still bustling with fanfare, with many people gathering around the booths set up along the stretch that boast a wide variety of things.

The chilly sea breeze cuts his skin, digging deep beneath until Kit’s teeth nearly chatter. He looks around for and finally finds the statue the detective asks to meet him at. It’s at the quieter end of the pier at a region of raised ground, so the area not only offers them an undaunted view of the ocean, but also of the entire pier itself.

The detective fetches an interesting portrait. A palette of blacks and whites, his dour dressing sense accentuates the angularity of his features. He rests his elbows against the railings of the pier, looking down at the hustle and bustle below. There’s such a focus to him that even the air around him seems to slow and sharpen down to a granular quality. From the angle at which Kit stands, he can catch a glimpse of the straight bridge of his nose and the highness of his cheekbones. When the detective hears Kit’s footsteps on the creaky boardwalk, he turns and smiles ever so slightly. It’s enough to make Kit’s heart jump.

The detective hands him a manila file.

“Iosof Loginovsky. Code name, the Rat. He’s been known to deal around several piers. I have been tracking the activity on a gourmet meat forum on the black web and he has arranged to buy a Jamon Iberico ham from someone, matching the exact same description as your ham.”

“Huh,” Kit says, looking at a mugshot of a big, burly man staring sullenly back at Kit. “Looks like a nice guy.”

“They said that they would be meeting at five. It’s four forty, so it should be any time soon.”

Kit grins and hands him back the manila folder. “Exciting. I’ve never been part of something like this before. Straight out of a Bond movie.”

Ty smiles. “Detective work is not quite the somersaulting, stomach-dropping, adrenaline-high endeavour that you are thinking of. Have you read Sherlock Holmes?”

Kit thinks for a while. “I only know of the characters.”

Ty’s gaze is trained on the crowd. His eyes look like microcosms of the boundless sky hanging overhead.

“It’s careful deduction,” he starts to say. For once, the detective is not talking about work. Kit has the sense he is divulging something personal in confidence. He listens intently as though it is of the utmost importance, the stakeout be damned. “It’s all about a step-by-step process, requiring painstaking patience. Conclusions are made from clues, and from there on deeper conclusions are made until the answer is found. One thing leads to another. Everything is clear-cut and has a logical flow.”

“You sound like a big fan.”

“I enjoy it,” Ty says. “It’s one of the reasons why I became a detective. Everything becomes so simple. Just turns into cause and effect.”

“Hm,” Kit hums, thinking.

“It’s a lot easier to view the world this way. I know most people can understand what other people say as if its second nature to them. But for me, it’s different. I need visual and verbal cues, like the tone of a voice or if someone is smiling or not to fully understand. That’s why I need to pay extra attention to everything.”

“I get that,” Kit says. “And sometimes observing people gives away more about them than listening to them does. People hide things, you know?”

Ty looks at him as though he has said something strange and illuminating. “Exactly.”

Kit is just about to respond when an alarm goes off. A tinny beep-beep-beep cuts off their trains of thought. Ty fishes into the pocket of his coat for his phone and scrambles to silence the alarm.

“Five o’clock,” he says.

With no need for further prompting, Kit and Ty look over the pier.

There is no sign of Iosof Whatever-vinsky. There’s only happy couples milling about, families and children gathered round booths. A dog bounds by, it’s leash trailing on the ground, and in its wake is a pair of desperate looking children who have, assumedly, been more negligent than they should. No one is particularly suspicious-looking.

Ten minutes pass. Fifteen. Twenty.

The detective still keeps a keen gaze on the crowd, persistent that the culprit will turn up, but there is nothing off-kilter about the festivities taking place on the pier. Everything is as normal as it can be. There are no big burly men who look as though they need a good sulk, and certainly not any criminals dealing in gourmet meat.

Kit clears his throat. Now, Kit’s never had any personal experience with stakeouts, but it does seem that this time round, it’s a no show. He turns hesitantly to the detective.

“Not to be a disturbance, but how long are we planning on waiting for?”

The detective’s eyes darken.

“Impossible,” the detective says. “But they said they would be meeting.

“Maybe it got cancelled? Maybe one of them fell down a manhole and got the good fortune they deserved, the universe is kind like that.”

Just as he says that, it occurs to him that Hypatia may be rubbing off on him more than he expects. He shakes his head, purging it of the thought.

“I don’t think they’re gonna show,” Kit finally says, because he knows a lost cause when he sees one.

The detective bites his lip. “Five more minutes.”

They end up waiting half an hour more, anyway, just because the detective wants to make sure that he absolutely, has not, let the culprit slip out of his grasp, and also because Kit cannot bring himself to disrupt him. So Kit waits patiently beside him, one eye on the crowd and the other on the detective. It’s not boring. In fact, Kit lets himself enjoy this moment of quiet with the detective by his side. If the detective was not wearing his work clothes and gripping the railing of the pier, white-knuckled, Kit would think this was a date. Far better stand at the top of a creaky pier with Ty Blackthorn by his side than spend the evening at his shop, alone, waiting for someone to step in.

By now it’s six and the sky is considerably darker. Dusk drapes itself over everything like a blanket, turning the blue waters dark and making the light at the pinnacle of the lighthouse appear stark golden as it scans the water, leading astray boats home. The crowd has thinned out. There’s hardly any noise down below, though the wind is howling.

Kit’s hands are freezing. He resists the urge to fold up the detective’s collar to shield his chin from the chilly draft.

“That’s all,” Ty says simply, after a while. He looks frustrated.

“That’s all?” Kit echoes.

“They set up a meeting and they didn’t follow through. Unintelligible,” he huffs. Finally, as if only now just registering that it’s absolutely frigid at the point where they are standing and he is cold, the detective brings his pale hands up to his mouth and blows on them. “I thought if people planned something they would want to follow through. Though I guess expecting a crook to keep their word would be a bit fruitless.”

“Are you sure they didn’t say anything else? Not postponing?” Kit asks cautiously. The detective seemed to be at a delicate point in time.

“No. I’ve been checking for the time we’ve been here, nothing was mentioned about the meetup.”

There’s an undercurrent of anger in his voice. Kit suspects it’s not just about the disappointing turnout but more to do with something fundamental in the idea of an agreement being broken.

“Was this your only lead?”

“No,” the detective says.

“Well that’s good,” he says lightly, patting the detective on the shoulder. “Many more chances for detective work. It’s not the end of the Jamon Iberico journey. If today’s a no-go, that means the meat is still with the original culprit and there will be another meet up in the future!”

After a while, the detective sighs. His fingers twirl the chain of the medallion, round and round and round. Stops once he can’t anymore, then repeats. Round and round and round. He grows quieter.

“I suppose you’re right,” he admits.

Then as though his frustration was a fog clouding his vision and it has now dissipated, he looks at Kit and says, suddenly:

“Your nose is red.”

He steps forward, so close to Kit that both their breaths come out as fine mists and rise and mingle together before disappearing. So close that Kit can count every long eyelash casting shadows on Ty’s cheek, can see that there is a slight freckle under his left eye that’s so faint that it might’ve faded into the rest of his unblemished skin. Close enough to realise that this is a real person, not someone from a dream, but real and breathing and beautiful.

Kit swallows hard. He hardly has any time to react. In the end he stays stock-still and frozen in surprise as the detective pulls the collar of Kit’s jacket up.

“Good?” he asks, pragmatically.

His grey eyes search Kit’s for an answer. There’s no underlying meaning behind the act. It’s pure and simple. Are you cold or are you not?

“Yes!” Kit chokes out, quickly ducking his head. He unconsciously pulls back from Ty’s grip, laughing nervously.

“We should explore,” he says, eager to do something to knock the dumbfoundedness out of himself. Kit’s cheek is still warm from where the detective’s fingers skimmed. “Some of the booths are still open. Might as well, since we’re here.”

Antsy, Kit trudges off first and soon after, the detective follows. Kit’s heart beats like there’s a jackrabbit inside him kicking earnestly against his ribcage, dying to come out, but the more they wend their way through the maze-like sprinkling of booths, the more it quiets to a calmer pace. It’s the suddenness of the moment that surprised him. Perhaps, if he can even admit it, it’s also the eagerness of his heart, the immediate willingness to lean forward and kiss him, that took him aback. It hasn’t been like that for anyone. Not anyone he’s ever dated. It’s only Ty Blackthorn who wields such wicked powers over him. It’s him who’s eating up Kit’s thoughts.

They pass by a diversity of booths. Mostly booths that peddle cheap tourist keychains, ridiculous ornaments, things you probably will never have a need for. Occasionally Ty will pick up an interesting looking artifact and inspect it for a bit while Kit tries his best to find interesting things to say about it. Caught in the atmosphere of the evening pier, the fanfare and intrigue of the booths, they’re both comfortable now. Loose, laughing easily. There’s a light in Ty’s eyes that Kit’s never seen before. Kit holds up a keychain of a bear holding a beer with the words “BEER-BEAR” and looks to Ty, grinning, and Ty grins back at him.

Eventually, they find a small booth just away from the central cluster of booths. It’s not as decorated and well-lit up as the other booths, but it’s not too shabby either. The tent is illuminated with a warm light, and it smells distinctly of some kind of paint or plaster. An old lady whose eyes are shielded by sunglasses sits in front of a table with a mound of clay, moulded into the shape of a head with ears but no features. A blank canvas. Beside her is an array of sharp instruments used for carving.

“Hello,” Kit says, ducking in, Ty following closely behind.

The old woman looks in their general direction and smiles vaguely. “Care to get a portrait from a blind sculptor?”

Kit looks to Ty, who looks back at him. Ty smiles and Kit shrugs, and as if they’d just communicated something through some secret, unspoken language, Ty says, “Sure. We have time.”

Kit volunteers himself first, sitting down on the stool in front of the old lady, not realizing what he’s supposed to do until the old lady says, “Describe him to me.”

“Who?”

“Your friend, of course,” the old woman laughs as though it’s obvious. “I’m blind, how would I know what he looks like?”

Kit laughs as well, feeling stupid. “Of course, of course.”

Ty stares at him humorously across the tent, arms folded and smile playing at his lips. He raises an eyebrow at Kit.

Kit rolls his eyes at him.

“Be clear,” the woman says, picking up her implements. Her fingers waft around with a dexterity that only artists have. Her hands are covered with clay. “Once again, I’m blind. I can’t see at all.”

“Well,” he starts, and looks at Ty.

And what is Kit supposed to say? His mouth opens and closes with no answer. The old woman raises a carving knife to the faceless clay model, ready to begin carving, but he’s drawn up short to an absolute speechlessness.

Is he, perhaps, supposed to mention how Ty, as he is watching Kit carefully, face washed in golden with the illumination of the small lamp, looks entirely cherubic? Gilded in gold? How his mouth that is so usually set in a serious frown is now soft and pliant, looking as though the edges would turn up with the slightest provocation? Or maybe should he say that he’s spent the past time wishing he could take the detective by the collar and do what he did for Kit – straighten his collar and put it up against the wind, just to protect that dainty chin from the cutting chill? And perhaps, on the way, press his lips to the column of his throat, gentle enough to not leave a mark on the delicate skin?

Kit laughs nervously. He doesn’t trust himself with his words. Not in this moment.

“Uh,” he says. Clears his throat. “Well – ”

It’s hard to speak. Right now Kit feels about as natural trying to string an acceptable sentence together as a fish doing so. He scrutinizes Ty’s face, searching for something inoffensive to say.

“Two eyes… a mouth. Nose. Quite… straight,” he chokes out.

The old woman begins moulding it hesitantly. “More details,” she urges.

“The face, you know, quite general. It’s circular. The way you’ve got it right now is good.”

“Ears?”

“Ears… the way you’ve got it now is good. Round and – yes, round. Not too small or not too large, it’s just right.”

The old woman frowns. She looks disgruntled. She continues carving, following his senseless instructions. It doesn’t take long for her to finish and when she does, she turns to Ty’s general direction to say, “I hope this looks like you.”

Expectedly, it doesn’t. The two of them stare at the sculpture in stony silence. It looks like a very possible face. It could be the face of someone that exists in some corner of this world, but it’s not Ty’s face.

Ty looks at the final product and then at Kit, puzzled.

Kit shrugs one shoulder, as if to say I tried.

“Your turn.”

Kit stands, relieved, and lets Ty takes his place. The eyes of the distinctly Not-Ty sculpture follow him as Kit stands to the side, as if to say, You Idiot.

Kit clears his throat and looks away.

Ty frowns thoughtfully. He looks back and forth between Kit and the blank clay model, as if searching for the right words to describe Kit with. No easy task. Kit’s glad he’s over with it, been there, done that, the entire experience only made more difficult with his traitorous heart.

But where Kit backs away, Ty leans in to inspect closer. Where Kit is evasive, providing the least specific information in some bone-deep survival instinct handed down to him from father to son that repeats in his head, pack light. Don’t trust anyone. Cover your tracks, Ty describes everything in an excruciatingly precise detail Kit doesn’t know he has been paying to him. Brow furrowed, lip pursed, eyes murky with thought, he is unfailingly honest, always reaching for the truth.

“His face is sharp, he has high cheekbones but it becomes more squarish towards the bottom. It’s not very obvious, but his eyes are very slightly turned up. And he laughs a lot, smiles even more. There’s a faint imprint of crow’s feet beside his eyes. His nose is generally straight, a high bridge, but it slopes up at the end. His mouth is small. He has a defined cupid’s bow…”

Beneath Ty’s scrutinizing gaze, Kit cannot bring himself to meet his eyes. Instead he keeps his eyes trained on the floor. His fingers are twisted behind his back. Ty’s voice is soft and thoughtful, sincere, earnest to get the descriptions down right.

At one point, Ty stands and goes closer to the clay model to get a better look. He’s not even looking at Kit anymore.

“He has freckles all over his nose, in the spot where if he laughs and his nose scrunches, they run all over the place. You could make his chin a little slimmer. And you’ve got his eyebrows wrong. They’re too severe. Kit has expressive eyebrows. They make him look happy.”

The old woman laughs, hands working rapidly. “I may have done this for a long time, but I’m still blind, you know.”

Ty smiles. He looks to Kit to see if he has understood and appreciated the joke and Kit musters a shaky smile back.

Eventually, the old woman finishes. It takes a considerably longer time than when Kit did it, after all the multiple revisions and comments Ty gave, in which he pointed out the most minute detail and said, “No, you’ve got it wrong. Not like that.” The old woman lets out a sigh of relief, glad to be done with the sculpture.

Kit approaches the rendering cautiously, as though staring into the face of his doppelganger.

“Huh,” he says.

The portrait looks the spitting image of him. Eye for eye, nose for nose, freckle for freckle. Ty has really pressed the old woman for exactitude in every detail, unrelentingly precise.

“Felt like I was being grilled,” she remarks lightly.

Kit smiles faintly, still peering at his clay double. “Well you’re dealing with a detective here. LAPD’s very finest.”

“Most of the times I do these things for people, they’re just happy to get something with eyes and ears and a mouth with at least one characteristic feature. But you’re very persistent with detail.”

“I only wanted to do it right,” Ty says. “Nice work, by the way.”

“After all that, I hope so.” The old woman laughs, a gravelly sound. “Now I’m sorry to have to chase you out, but it’s way past my closing time and I have to get home. Though it was nice having the both of you, really, very refreshing encounter indeed.”

Kit looks at Ty and jerks his head to the door. Let’s go. Ty nods, understanding in his eyes. They pay her a small fee and thank the old woman very much, picking up their decapitated clay heads in their hands and ducking out the small tent.

*

Kit is quiet on the walk back. The detective came here by car, so he offers to send Kit home. As he carries his head in his hands, Kit feels shaky. Caught off guard by the strange and new emotions swelling inside him. The most obvious emotion being guilt. Guilt at deceiving the detective, though Kit has not exactly lied outright to him about anything. It’s just that Ty has been so sincere, Kit feels that it is only right that his honesty should be met with Kit’s honesty, which means baring his crooked past to the detective, and Kit knows that it is impossible. The second emotion, though buried deeper inside him with a kind of shame and bashfulness and who knows what else – Kit is not about to perform a psychoanalysis on himself right now, thank you very much – is love.

Gosh. He feels like pinching the bridge of his nose. He’s not sure how he ended himself in this mess. It’s a sticky tangled web of emotions, and Kit has always been one to lock away feelings in some corner of his mind.

“Nice souvenir, isn’t it?” Ty asks off-handedly. “It’s a good way to remember a case.”

“Definitely,” Kit replies. “I think you really nailed mine, though I’m sorry the same can’t be said for yours.”

“Avant-garde,” Ty says. Kit looks up, surprised, only to realise that the detective is joking. It’s the first time Kit’s ever heard a joke come from him, and despite the trouble brewing in his mind, he can’t help but grin.

The ride home is quiet, but it’s a comfortable silence. Kit leans his head against the window, trying not to fall asleep. Classical music filters in through the stereo, which upon thinking about it, is a very Ty Blackthorn sort of thing.

Kit smiles to himself.

He and Ty talk about classical music briefly, arguing about Tchaikovsky versus Queen (“It’s too loud.” “Your whole body is immersed in the music. The drums and bass sound so cool.” “Tchaikovsky is cool too.” “I can tell you that exactly no one has ever said Piano Concerto No. 1 rocks my world.”), neither of them too invested in their side. Their decapitated heads listen silently in the backseat, faces frozen, strapped into their seats with seatbelts even though Ty is a very circumspect driver and the car ride is hardly bumpy.

Sooner than he thinks it will, the car finally slides to a stop in front of Rook’s Meats.

Kit finds that there is a sharp pang of longing in his chest to stay longer. Turn the car around and let’s go one more round around the block, he wants to say but immediately feels stupid for thinking so.

Ty smiles at him. “Good night.”

“Drive home safe,” Kit tells him, stepping out of his car and fetching his clay head. Just as he’s about to swing the door shut, Ty calls out, “Kit, wait.”

Kit stops and turns. Hope burgeons in his chest.

“You should come over sometime. My family would love to meet you.”

Heart stops. Breath hitches.

“’Course,” he says breathlessly, hopefully passing off as casual, already knowing where this is going and not being able to and, in fact, not wanting to stop this.

“Great.” Ty smiles. A proper smile. Not the small ones he’s been giving Kit all the time, but full-bodied and radiant, a wide grin that illuminates his features and breathes fresh life into them. It melts Kit’s heart.

“See you. I’ll message you,” Ty says.

“’Course,” he repeats dumbly. “Sure, yeah.”

The black car drives away, leaving Kit on the sidewalk cradling the image of himself as viewed through Ty’s eyes. How Ty views him. It’s more than what he thinks of himself. Kit has always seen himself as a little scrappy. Beaten down, rough around the edges, fickle and flighty. A little lonely sometimes and it haunts him when he has too much time to overthink. But the Kit that is sculpted from clay is captured mid-sprawling smile, joyous and carefree, smile lines etched into his face and haphazardly splattered with freckles all over. Not a care in the world, filled with bravado and irreverence. Happy. Self-possessed. Larger than life. Beautiful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> parallel between kit and ty. kit, as one who is afraid to show his true emotions, always suppressing his true intentions after growing up under his criminal, neglectful father. ty as one who is confident of himself and values honesty, sees no reason to lie, unconscious of customs which may inhibit the truth and it shows up in unselfconscious behaviour, like inviting kit to dinner though it may seem out of nowhere. this is why though they both thought of drawing up each other's collars to protect against the wind (and kit is the first to think that), ty is the only one who does it :( ah parallels


	8. Chapter 8

Kit tries his best to look presentable, opting to swap out his usual ratty shirt for a more acceptable looking band tee and he wears his best jeans, i.e. the ones with the least holes in them. He finds himself catching his reflection in the reflective surfaces around him – the glass of the display cabinet, the shiny metal of his knives – with a kind of paranoia to make sure that he looks ready for a family gathering. Family-friendly, Kit notes with a hint of irony. Kit hasn’t felt this way in ages. This push-and-pull, this coyness. The nervous fluttering in his stomach. He feels like a blushing, made-up girl waiting for her prom date to pick her up from his doorstep. Ridiculous.

Does he actually like the detective? Instinctively, it’s something he vehemently denies. But in truth, Kit has spent the last few nights staring at the clay version of himself as constructed from Ty’s vision, and wondering: is this how he really sees me? Warmer, happier, more self-assured, Kit looks like someone he can actually fall in love with.

And sometimes late into the night, when Kit is shrouded in the darkness of his room, head tipped back as he sprawls out on his shitty couch, a little drunk after finishing several cans of Corona, the bedroom swimming in front of his eyes, a singular thought will cut through the bleariness: the detective, Ty, his radiant smile and quiet moments of thought. The divot that appears between his eyebrows in his moments of frustration, his seriousness for someone so young.

Kit places his face in his hands and groans. He shouldn’t be thinking about this.

The hands of the clock read 6.15pm. The detective will be here any minute. Kit splashes some water on his face and readies the bag of ingredients with which he will prepare dinner. He told the detective, why invite a butcher-slash-cook over and not have him do one of the two things he actually can do? And after some protest, the detective relented.

A black car slides to the front of the store. Sparing only one final check at his reflection in the microwave (passable, Kit concedes grudgingly), he grabs his keys and bag and locks up behind him. He turns to meet the detective, who stands in front of the car, hands coming up to pull the lapels of his blazer down though they cannot be any straighter.

Kit cannot help but smile. He raises a hand up slightly in greeting.

The detective mimics the same action. It’s an arrow to Kit’s heart, striking bullseye.

“How’s work?”

“Busy,” Ty replies. “You’re not my only open case now.”

“Good. I can’t wait to hear grisly cop stories.”

“Oh, I have many. I think you will like them.”

He takes the bag from Kit – warm fingers brush his, sending electric shocks shuddering up his arm– and he goes to place the bag in the trunk while Kit slides into the passenger seat.

The car is like an extension of his personality, Kit thinks. Any person can sit in his car and get a good feel of what the detective is like. It’s extremely neat, not a thing out of place. Everything feels like it has been set into position with extraordinary intent. The CDs are colour-coded, arranged carefully in a drawer, and they’re all of classical music. The car smells like him, a nice, clean smell like the scent of fresh laundry. And it feels like him, too. Dark and sleek, shining with the gloss of good upkeep.

During the drive, the detective updates him on his family. There are Helen and Mark who are usually not at home because Helen is in New York with her girlfriend and Mark is in Europe, backpacking with friends. There’s Julian, who recently moved out to stay with his wife, Emma, and they have a neat little place down in Santa Monica, where Emma owns a surf shop and surfs herself. She is a pro-surfer. Kit lets out a low whistle when he hears this. Now he really wants to meet her. There’s Livia, Ty’s twin, and Kit lets out a cry of astonishment: “You didn’t tell me you had a twin!” There is Dru, who is in college taking film studies, and finally, Tavvy, who is in high school.

“That’s a large family,” Kit says.

“It is large,” Ty agrees.

They pull up at a nice looking neighbourhood where houses are arranged in neat rows. They go up to once of the nice houses in those neat rows. Ty knocks.

Kit looks around, seeing flower bush, verandah, porch. It’s the kind of house that appears in infomercials on the home shopping network to advertise some special detergent or a nifty new-fangled kitchen tool. The kind where the smiling family gathers in front of the house at the end to wave to the camera: mom, dad, brother and sister.

All of a sudden, Kit is filled with an overwhelming feeling of wrongness. That he does not belong here. Even standing behind Ty at the doorstep, he is out of place, an intruder, someone who has never known about family. Family. The word in itself conveys ruckus, riotous camaraderie, bringing to mind more of the Blackthorn’s large clan than the Rook’s compact two-person unit. What if they reject him? What if they hate him and turn him away?

Kit is flight-ready, hands shaking. He can’t do this. He opens his mouth, seconds away, to tell Ty: hey, forget it. Let’s call this off. Maybe this is a bad idea, when the door opens.

The first face he sees is a girl. Brown hair tumbles down either side of her face and her eyes are an eye-catching shade of blue. From the mental log of all the Blackthorn siblings he has spent painstakingly committing to memory during the drive, this must be –

“Oh, hello. I’m Livvy,” she says pleasantly. “You must be Kit.”

“Right,” Kit says. He steps out from behind Ty to extend a hand for her to shake. Livvy looks at his proffered hand for a moment, as if confused, then laughs and throws her arms around him. He is shocked at first, and then his arms come up in autopilot mode to wrap around her. He can feel her laughter resounding against his chest, rattling around all his organs and bones.

“No need for the formality.” She draws back, eyes sparkling. “Now, I hear you are the chef of the day. Please come in. Oh, and mind the cat. His name is Church and he can be very annoying.”

A Persian cat with deep blue coat comes prowling through Livvy’s legs to give Kit a curious glance. Kit extends a hand for the cat to sniff but it dashes away. He retracts his hand, rebuffed. It’s more than the welcome Kit expects anyway.

*

Physically speaking, it’s not very apparent that Ty and Livvy are twins. There’s only a shadow of similarity between their faces, only sharing perhaps the sharpness of their cheekbones, the shape of their faces, and their small, pursed mouths. That’s where the similarities stop. In almost every other aspect, they appear diametrically opposite to each other. One has dark hair, one has brown hair. One has grey eyes, the other has blue eyes.

But their behaviour betrays more than their genetics do. Livvy pulls Ty in to place a kiss on his cheek, whispering something in his ear. His head is bowed, ear inclined to her, and when she finishes saying her piece, the exact same smile curves on both their lips at the same time. They break away. Kit has to avert his eyes shamefully as though he has just infringed on an intimate moment.

He likes her already. Livvy is warm and sweet, welcoming him readily into the family. She shines with the same kind of sharp intelligence present in Ty, and talking to the two of them, it’s obvious how they’re both attuned to each other. Sometimes, Ty will talk about something that is beyond Kit’s understanding, the technical jargon going right over his head without so much as a cursory glance. Kit has to slow down to patiently untangle all his words before he can understand it well, but Livvy catches on quickly. She is able to bounce back some of her own questions to Ty, and at the same time, manage to keep Kit from being alienated in the conversation.

“Have you had any pets before, Kit?” Livvy asks, picking Church up and moving his paws so it looks like he’s waving to Kit. If it’s possible for a cat to scowl, Church is doing that now. “Hello, Kit,” she says in a high-pitched voice.

Kit scratches Church behind his ear. “I had a dog once. A golden retriever. I had to give it away, though, because I moved house.”

“What was its name?” Ty asks.

“Woof,” Kit says. “I know, stupid name.”

“That’s like if you were named ‘talked’. Or ‘spoken’. Or ‘yawned’,” Ty says.

“And you name your dear cat ‘Church’? That’s like if you were named ‘Basilica’ or some shit. I shouldn’t be the only one under fire for Worst Things To Name Your Pet.”

“Actually,” Ty says, “Basilica comes from the Greek word Basiliké Stoà or Royal Stoa, which is the tribunal chamber for a king. Coincidentally, the name Basil comes from the same Greek word which means royal or kingly. So not as inhumane as… Woof.”

“Church always has had something regal about him, hasn’t he?” Livvy says. “Kind of snobby like he can’t be bothered to interact with us plebes.”

Kit laughs. “That cat looks like he would rule with an iron fist. Probably seize the means of production of cat food.”

“King Church!” Livvy cries, holding him up in the air. “Bow down to your majesty.”

At this point, Livvy has no choice but to put Church down. The cat is meowing loudly and scrabbling to get out of her arms. Once he hits the floor, Church dashes off to find solace under a chair.

“He loves us,” Livvy assures Kit.

“I don’t see why not,” Kit says.

Church glares daggers at the three of them, eyes angry pinpricks of light under the shadow of the armchair.

*

Kit sets to cooking while Ty and Livvy are consumed in their own conversation on the sofa. He takes out the cuts of beef which he has prepared and seasons them generously with salt and pepper to make the beef stew.

Cooking has always relaxed Kit. The step-by-step procedure calms his nerves, providing him with assurance that this is something within his control. He feels the pace of his body gradually match the slow broil of the beef stew, reeling him in and tethering him to Earth, much like the force of gravity. Cooking is patience and control and love all in one activity. It’s hard to feel nervous when he’s manning the stove, a sweet aroma wafting from the pot. He even has to resist the urge to hum.

He doesn’t hear Livvy come up from behind him.

“Where did you learn to cook like that?” She marvels, making a show of inhaling the aroma.

“I live on my own so it’s important for me to know how to cook,” he says. “Where’s Ty?”

“I asked him to help Tavvy with calc. Homework these days is getting harder and harder, I swear. Do you need help with anything?”

“You could help me cut the vegetables?” Kit suggests. “They are in the bag there.”

Livvy rolls up her sleeves and ties her hair back to cut the carrots, onion, potatoes and carrots for the stew. Once the beef is browned, he adds wine, broth, water, thyme, bay leaves, and sugar. After this mixture sets for about half an hour, the vegetables will go in, but for now there is nothing to do but sit and wait.

“Kit, how did you meet my brother?” Livvy asks, during the lull in their cooking.

Kit takes his time with the answer by pretending to be in the midst of clearing the dirty dishes on the table.

“Oh,” he says. “Not quite the meeting you’d expect. He’s the detective in charge of my case.”

Livvy smiles softly. “He’s great, isn’t he? He’s so smart and sweet.”

On seeing the expression on Kit’s face, Livvy lets out a laugh.

“You don’t have to be like that. I’m not interrogating you. I’m not a detective like my brother.”

Kit barks out nervous laughter. “What am I being like? I’m not doing anything.”

“Kit,” she says, very seriously. Her hand comes up to rest on his arm gently. “I love my brother very much. I’m very protective over him, and if anyone were to hurt him in anyway, I couldn’t stand for it.”

Kit takes a step back. He laughs nervously and rakes a hand through his hair. “What – what are you talking about? We’re just friends. He’s the detective assigned to my case. And I would never hurt him intentionally.”

“Is he?” she asks, unconvinced. Her gaze is intent, two sharp eyes fixed on him. Kit feels his hackles raised, defenses up, ready to fill the space between him and Livvy with lies like a protective moat. “Then why did he invite you to dinner tonight?”

Silence. He thinks very hard but comes up empty-handed.

“I don’t know,” Kit admits. His first honest answer.

Livvy returns to her usual smiling self. “You know, I like you, Kit. You seem like a good guy. And I think you two are kinda cute together. God forbid you two PDA the hell out of everything and become the next Emma and Julian, but yeah.”

*

Dinnertime, Tavvy and Dru come out of their rooms. This is when he finds out two things. The first is that the Blackthorns have two defining traits: brown hair and blue-green eyes, and Ty peculiarly has neither of those. The second is that their names are derived from the names of important Roman figures.

“Our parents were pretentious, alright?” says Tavvy, seventeen, over a mouthful of beef stew. His brown hair sticks up in all directions.

Dru makes a disgusted sound. “Close your mouth when you eat, Tavvy.”

When they first meet Kit, Dru and Tavvy are initially suspicious of him. Fortunately, Kit’s the kind of person who gets along more with people younger than him, his mental maturity still stuck at his early twenties, so he’s able to keep up with the questions the two of them shoot at him. They watch the same movies, play the same video games, keep up to date with the same frivolous celebrity gossip, and this is enough for them to eventually warm up to him enough.

Tavvy is mostly glad to have someone else to talk about skateboarding and the Lakers with, while Dru is always on the lookout for a potential candidate that she can sway into liking horror films. She has already decided for Kit that the next movie he’s going to watch will be Carrie, followed by The Shining, followed by Train to Busan. She speaks with passion and articulateness, and the enduring appeal of the horror genre is a hill that she is willing to die on.

“Were?” Kit asks curiously.

“They died when we were young. Car accident,” Livvy says with a casualness that can only be achieved with the passing of years. Her eyes are wistful but not sad. “Julian took care of us mostly.”

They speak fondly of Julian and Emma, discussing their life away from the family. Dru says, she for one, is glad they are out of the house, considering how disgusting they were together. But then she says she misses his waffles. His cookies, Tavvy agrees. Livvy lets out a nostalgic sigh as she reminisces over their past.

There is something so endearing about the Blackthorn family. Their quirks, their tendencies, their charm. It’s warm and happy. Though it may not be obvious, like in the exasperated way Dru tells Tavvy to close his mouth while he chews his food, there’s an undercurrent of love running through all their interactions with each other.

And it’s full of laughter. Kit doesn’t think he’s laughed so much before.

“Okay, okay,” Kit says, holding a hand up. “I’ve been waiting all day to say this: let’s hear the cop stories. The more brutal, the better.”

Ty recounts the cases he’s either worked on first hand or read about: murders, homicides, money-laundering. He tells them of a particular case of a woman who receives a nicely wrapped gift box sitting on her doorstep and opens it only to find a dismembered finger. Everyone at the table whoops in excitement. More stories about dismembered appendages, blood, guts and gore. Livvy begins to look sick and has to rest her head in her hands.

“That’s insane!” Kit cries, somehow having ended up at the edge of his seat. “I didn’t know real life was so exciting. I thought this kinda shit just happened in movies.”

“Exactly,” Tavvy agrees vehemently. “The story about the Yo-Yo strangler is fucking epic.”

They high-five each other across the table – hard. It makes a loud thwacking sound and when they pull back their hands, of which the underside has turned completely red, they both cry out in pain.

Over Livvy’s shrilly cry of _“Language, Tavvy!”_ and the uproarious laughter that fills the room, Tavvy falls back into his seat, clutching his stomach with laughter. Livvy has a hand clapped over her mouth and Dru shakes her head disbelievingly, like why am I related to you? Rocking back on his chair’s hind legs, full and contented, Kit looks over the table at Ty (in truth, in every scenario, at any given moment he is always looking for Ty, as if he has a natural magnetism to him), but Ty is already looking at him. His grey eyes are filled with warmth.

As though something unspoken has passed between the two of them, they smile. No one sees it, the rest are too busy laughing or crying or doing a peculiar mix of both, that the smile exchanged across the table passes between them unnoticed. It feels furtive almost, conspiratorial, something shared between the two of them that no one else knows. Kit’s heart swells, full to bursting. He ducks his head.

*

When dinner is over, Dru retires to her room and Livvy rushes Tavvy to go to his room to do his homework. It’s evident that now that the older siblings have moved out of the house, Livvy has taken it upon herself to be the maternal figure to her younger siblings.

“No offense to Jules, but can Kit cook for us the next time he comes over?” Tavvy asks. “Jules is good at cooking comfort food but Kit is – ” He mimes a chef kiss.

Kit raises a glass to Tavvy in gratitude. “Glad you enjoyed it.”

Now it’s just the two of them in the kitchen. Kit stands at the sink, running all the dirty dishes under water and scrubbing them with dishwashing liquid, while Ty stands next to him, towelling off the clean dishes. It’s quiet. The sound of the running tap and the clatter of stacked dishes are enough to fill the space between them with comfortable silence. Idly, Kit thinks about how the detective, in his generosity, has opened up his family to Kit, introduced to him warmth and communal spirit that Kit will never have experienced if not for him, and Kit has done nothing for him. He has asked for nothing from Kit in return.

“Do you need help?”

Ty’s voice cuts through Kit’s reverie. Kit jolts back to reality. He realises that his hand has paused from scrubbing the plate with dishwashing liquid. Ty has been waiting for Kit to pass him the next plate.

He laughs shakily. “No, no, I’m fine.”

Kit’s hand shakes as he clutches the dish, the tremor barely masked by soapsuds. He quickly resumes scrubbing but slender fingers take the plate from him with an aching gentleness.

“Let me do it,” Ty says. His eyes are lowered in concentration as he draws circles into the white dish.

The truth of the matter is, Kit wants to fall into him and hold him tightly. He wants to never come back up for air. He wants to tuck his face in the elegant crook of his neck and breathe him in, but his hands, covered in dishwashing liquid, are soiled, held out in front of him a little helplessly.

Kit is silent as the detective washes and wipes the last plate.

When they are done, they fall into the sofa bonelessly like an old couple, eyes shut, expended of energy. They work out all the cricks in their joints, laughing at the sheer noise they make. Kit can feel the warmth of the detective pressed into his side. He keeps his eyes closed as he soaks in the feeling of him close by his side. He can fall asleep like this.

“Kit,” Ty says. Kit opens his eyes.

He’s looking at the detective, who presents to him a neatly wrapped square-shaped package produced out of nowhere.

“What’s this?” Kit asks.

“Happy birthday,” Ty says simply. “Well – is it your birthday? I don’t actually know if it is your birthday or not so I didn’t tell Livvy and rest because that would’ve been embarrassing if I got it wrong, but according to my calculations, there’s a fair chance that today is your birthday. But I thought inviting to you to dinner wouldn’t do any harm if I was wrong.”

Kit can only gape. “How – how did you know it is my birthday today? I didn’t tell anyone.”

“That day,” Ty says. “The picture of you and your father. The date it was taken is printed in the corner and you were carrying a balloon in the picture that looked like it was stylised for a birthday.” Then he frowns. “Did I guess wrongly?”

Kit rakes a hand through his hair, blinking furiously. “No. Not at all. That’s – that’s quite brilliant.”

The detective lets out a sigh of relief. Then he shakes the package at him. “Here.”

Reluctantly, Kit takes the present from the detective and unwraps it, careful not to damage the perfectly folded packaging. No creases or wonky lines whatsoever. It has been a long time since he has received a gift from someone, even longer since he has celebrated his birthday. Johnny’s not exactly the kind of person who’s big on these kinds of things. Very slowly, he pulls out the collector’s edition of A Night at the Opera.

Kit stares at it for a while. “Queen.”

“You said you liked Queen.”

“You remembered,” he says blankly.

“Of course I did,” Ty says.

Throughout his life, Kit has learned to erect careful walls of protection around himself. He has learned, sometimes the hard way, that it’s easier to tuck away from sight the things that he holds closely to his chest, that to keep running and turning tail is sometimes the smarter option. Over the years, the walls have strengthened, fortified. But now as the detective watches him carefully, eyes wide with guile, hands clenching and unclenching nervously as he waits for Kit’s response – and to know his carefulness, his attention which he gives out so freely to even the most undeserving of things, the most undeserving of people –

Kit can hardly stand strong in the face of that. He feels years of protection crumble away.

“Thank you,” Kit chokes out. His voice is plain with emotion. “I love it.”

Ty looks pleased. “I’m happy.”

“I love it,” Kit repeats. “I’ll keep it carefully.”

*

The detective fetches him home. They talk casually, speaking of Livvy and Dru and Tavvy, and again the ride is too short. They arrive at the storefront too fast and too soon. Just before Kit swings the door shut, he looks at the detective. Words that have been on the tip of his tongue since dinner are ready to jump out. He’s so close to saying it, so ready to just throw caution to the wind, and he will have if only the detective turned to him and asked him, do you have anything to tell me, Kit? There’s no mincing his words, no beating around the bush, it’s the only thing that he is sure of if he is sure of nothing else, the simplest truth, which is, of course, _I love you_.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> also written for a tumblr prompt for jealous ty

Over the course of the weeks, he comes to learn a few facts. The first is that the Blackthorns are welcoming people. They don’t mind the fact that Kit has been coming over for the past few weeks to cook them dinner. Tavvy’s always delighted whenever Kit’s the one cooking because he especially likes his stew. And though Livvy’s initially hesitant on imposing on him, she says she can’t argue with that. It’s good stew. In fact, it’s gotten to the point where she even sends him a little text daily to ask him if he’s coming over for dinner or not. Most of the time he’ll say yes. It might be something he will regret in the middle of the night when he finds his thoughts held in the clutches of a certain soft-smiled detective, but Kit doesn’t care. Just to glimpse Ty peeking back at him smilingly from the inside of his sleek, black, finely tuned car every evening as he waits for Kit to close shop is enough for him.

The second is that family is… kind of nice. Kit’s not talking about the concept of family as he knows it, which is the eating-television-dinners alone and waiting-for-a-call-which-never-comes kind of arrangement that he and Johnny have. He’s talking about the warm kind. The communal kind. A special kind of love that Kit has never experienced before. He has always thought of love as something to be worked for and earned, something that would eventually wane away one day when the initial excitement faded. He knows this through his past relationships. He has had to dazzle his partners with witty remarks and winsome smiles to captivate their attention, and once he could no longer sustain this, they grew tired of him and discarded him. Even in him and his father’s relationship, Kit has been doing the dancing monkey act in front of him for years, in the hopes that one day Johnny might turn to look at him, but he never did.

The idea of family here, in the Blackthorn house, is magnified and blossomed. Here, love is not the careful currency that Kit envisions it in his mind to be, something to be doled out sparingly on a good performance. Instead it’s generous. Freely given. He has only known them for a short period of time — the only thing he has done for them is cook them a meal every now and then — and yet it manifests itself in little things, like in the way that they all huddle on the sofa during horror movie night, as per Dru’s order, jumping at the scares and covering their eyes at particularly gory scenes. Livvy sees how Kit’s covering his eyes so much that he’s hardly watching the movie at all and she laughs and pokes fun of him gently. Tavvy butts in to say, “Weren’t you the most confident out of all of us in the beginning?” and Kit will sink lower into his seat, cheeks burning in mortification, mumbling good-humoredly that Tavvy can take that attitude and shove it up — somewhere. Like in the way that when Dru visits a new bakery that opened downtown, she doesn’t just buy bread for her family, she gets some for Kit too. Like in the way that Livvy notices a hole in Kit’s shirt and offers to mend it for him. She gets out a needle and thread and she squints hard through her glasses for several minutes, trying to manoeuver the thread through the eye of the needle. Like… in the way that Ty helps him with the dishes after dinner every night. He takes the half-sudded plates from Kit’s unwilling hands and tells him, gently, without looking at him, that he can take it from here.

(And, of course, that CD. It sits at his beside table alongside his clay bust. It’s still in the same quality it was in when it came out of the packaging. Kit doesn’t dare to touch it in fear of damaging it.)

Days turn to weeks turn to months. In a blink of an eye, March flies by, giving way to June, and all of the sudden, the temperature begins to drop with the onset of the Los Angeles winter. It’s strange to think that he has spent so much time with this family, learning all of their quirks and eccentricities. It’s starting to feel like he’s part of them now.

After dinner, he and Ty stand at the sink, doing the familiar routine again. Kit passes the clean dishes to Ty and Ty takes them and dries them. They have developed a fixed system now with all the time spent together. For some reason it is always Kit who washes the dirty dishes and Ty who wipes them dry. Neither of them questions it. They work well together, like a good set of hands. Somewhere along the way, they developed a good understanding of each other and learned to anticipate each other’s needs before they can be verbalized. Just like now. Kit reaches for a towel but before he can get it, it’s already held out to him in Ty’s hands. Kit smiles and thanks him. Ty ducks his head without acknowledging this gratitude. They continue on without speaking to each other. They’re good like that.

He and Ty. This is the first time they’ve seen each other this week. The butchery is a lot busier these days with everyone placing orders for their Christmas feasts. Kit spends his time hacking away at bone and gliding his cleaver through meat to prepare a specific cut, so more often that he wishes to, he turns down Livvy’s invitations for him to join them for dinner. Today is the only day in the week that he can make it to their house, but even then, they haven’t spoken much to each other. They simply haven’t had the chance. The minute that Kit set foot in the house, Dru pulled him aside to ask him for help with her laptop that ate up a DVD. Then after he finally managed to get the thing out with some jimmying, he spent some time in the backyard with Tavvy, practicing skateboarding tricks. Tavvy laughed at him as he toppled to the ground and landed on his ass hard after a misguided attempt at an Ollie. In return, Kit chased him all over the backyard, to the point where Livvy had to come out and stop them because of the sheer noise they were making.

They talked a little during dinner. Ty caught him up on the case, though it was not the same as their usual conversations when the whole family was there, present and listening. In fact, Ty seemed a little unfocused. Throughout the dinner, he picked at his cufflinks and worried his sleeves distractedly, mostly keeping quiet. He only inclined his head to respond to the conversation at certain times.

Kit wonders if there is something that is bothering him. He is just about to ask him about it when Livvy calls him from the living room.

“Could you come here and help me with something, Kit?”

Kit looks at Ty. Ty nods at him. Something reminiscent to disappointment flares in his eyes.

“Go,” he tells Kit. “I’ll finish up.”

Kit obliges. He washes the soap from his hands and pats them dry on the front of his jeans, before joining Livvy at the sofa.

She’s staring at her phone screen in deep concentration. She looks tired after a whole day at work, blinking slowly, body slumped into the sofa. He watches her poke around her phone with puzzled fingers. After a while, she groans.

“My photo gallery pictures have all disappeared. I don’t know what happened.”

Kit takes the phone from her and swipes around.

“Have you tried turning it off and turning it back on?”

She stares at him flatly.

“Ha-ha, Kit,” she says. Though, after a pause, she mumbles, “Like ten times.”

Kit tries to subdue his amused grin. “I’ll help you resync to your iCloud, see if that works.”

She rests her head on his shoulder and sighs. “You’re a godsend.”

He swipes around her phone, fiddling with her settings. “So,” she suddenly asks. Her eyes are trained idly up at the ceiling. “How’s it like being the family boyfriend?”

Kit jumps. “What?”

The smile that has been playing on her lips breaks into laughter. “You’ve been brought around the house on a world tour ever since you set foot here. Everyone needs you.”

Kit huffs. “It just shows how un-tech savvy this entire family is, if anything. Don’t you all keep up to date with new phone models and what not?”

“Don’t expect us to, now that we have you.”

Kit tries not to smile at that, but it’s hard to.

“How are the two of you?”

“The two of us?” Kit echoes, not taking his eyes off her phone screen. “Just fine. Just friends.”

“Really?” Livvy asks absentmindedly. “I don’t think I’ve seen friends behave the way you two do.”

“And how do we behave?”

“Like you absolutely can’t bear to be apart from each other too long. Like you’re an old married couple. Might I add, I especially love how you’ve established a routine of doing dishes at the sink and then collapsing onto the couch afterwards. It’s cute. Very domestic. You know, sometimes you two will fall asleep there and I have to throw a blanket over the both of you?”

A flush creeps across Kit’s cheeks. Those are the times when his eyes would crack open blearily in the early morning the next day to see Ty’s head resting on his shoulder, sleep hazing out the edges of his demeanour and turning his eyes into soft crescents. His hair mussed with sleep. Those times Kit would be torn between slipping out before anyone can see the two of them tangled embarrassingly together and not wanting to disturb the fragile peace of Ty’s being. And in every case, not once could he bring himself to choose the former. In the end, he just stayed frozen in that position, letting the hand that was trapped under Ty prickle with pins and needles, until Ty woke up on his own. Kit remembers watching the steady rise and fall of his chest, the sweet fullness of his pursed lips. He remembers thinking: _how beautiful_.

Heat rushes to his cheeks. Kit shoves the dangerous thought out of his mind.

“You are aware that your phone is in my hands and I have all the power over you? I could very well announce to all your Instagram followers that you have webbed feet.”

She laughs. “I trust you. Besides, you like my brother, so you wouldn’t do anything like that.”

“That is very tenuous reasoning,” he mutters, neither confirming nor denying the fact, which is something Livvy sharply picks up on. She looks at him pointedly. He gives the phone screen a final stab and the loading wheel appears. It spins: 10%… 15%… 20%. “Here. Your photos should be back once it finishes loading.”

“You’re the best,” she exclaims gratefully and presses a kiss to his cheek. He grudgingly accepts it. “Now go.” Her eyes sparkle with mischief. She gives him a hug so she might murmur something knowingly into his shoulder, close enough that it’s just within earshot: “I’ve kept you long enough now. And I think someone’s waiting to get his turn with you.”

Kit’s eyes drift over to the kitchen, where Ty has finished. Kit glances up at him at the same time that Ty turns to look at him, so for a brief, breathless moment, their eyes meet and lock. There is no explanation for the warmth unspooling in his chest, except for just the one, which Kit has been denying for the past few months. Ty ducks his head, first to break the eye contact. He goes back to being busy with wiping his hands on a towel.

Livvy raises an eyebrow at him teasingly. Sparing her one last look of annoyance, Kit gets up to go over to Ty.

“Hey.”

Ty steals a look at him. He carefully folds the towel into a neat square before hanging it back on the rack. He straightens a couple of jars and he shifts the cutlery holder a little more to the side. There is something different about him. He has been chancing careful glances at Kit out of the corner of his eye ever since the start of dinner.

His face is turned away from Kit. “You took a long time over there.”

“Yeah, Livvy had a phone issue.”

Ty moves away from him over to the sink. “What’s wrong with her phone?”

Tentatively, Kit follows him. “She lost all the photos in her photo album. Cloud issue.”

“And did you manage to find a solution?”

“Yeah, I got her photos back. I told her that this family seriously needs to learn how to read an Apple manual or something.”

“But we have you around. We don’t need to.”

“This family,” Kit says lightly, shaking his head with mock-disappointment. “Am I a family friend or just a resident handyman?”

A crooked smile settles on Ty’s face. He huffs out a laugh. Without looking up, he says, “No. You’re also our cook too.”

Kit laughs. “Well, whatever it is, I’m glad to be of use.”

Finally, Ty stills. He stops picking up things that don’t need any more straightening.

“Come to my room,” he says. His eyes are lowered. “I have something to show you.”

“Of course,” Kit says softly.

There’s a spark of excitement in his chest at the idea of visiting Ty’s room. He has never been in there before, and the thought of setting foot into a place as private as his room makes his cheeks heat. Kit wonders if he might discover something new about Ty.

The first thought that goes through his mind when he steps inside is: clean.

Kit supposes that is expected. It is not difficult to imagine the same meticulous attention that Ty pays to everything applied to his living space. It is evident in the neat row of books on his shelves and the organizational trays that line his table, every compartment no doubt in charge of holding a strict category of items. His bed is neatly made and there is minimal clutter as well.

It’s also dark. Ty skips the main light and instead chooses to turn on the lamp at his bedside table. It illuminates the room in a soft orange glow. Ty gestures for him to sit down, and after a moment’s hesitation, Kit cautiously eases himself onto the edge of his bed, careful not to mess up anything. The sheets smell of vanilla sandalwood. In one picture frame, a family of seven gazes back at Kit. In another, there’s Ty and Livvy, photographed side by side to each other. There is something so intimate about this that it makes Kit’s heart stammer. He swallows.

“What did you want to show me?”

After a moment’s pause, Ty simply replies, “The room.”

“Oh. It’s very nice.”

The two of them stand around for a while in silence, unsure of what to do. Ty laughs guiltily. “I’ll admit, I didn’t have anything to show you.”

“Then…?”

“Because,” Ty says. “There was hardly any chance for us to talk. We could hardly speak without being interrupted.”

“Oh.”

He picks at the cufflinks on his shirt again. “Everyone keeps stealing you away. We haven’t seen each other for quite some time too.”

“It’s only been a week.”

“A week is long enough.”

Kit’s breath catches. His eyes flick up to read Ty’s face, but once again — nothing but pure honesty.

Indeed. Indeed a week is long enough. Kit found himself thinking the same thing when he was back at the butcher’s, boredly manning the counter, measuring time by the days that have passed since he last saw Ty.

He ignores the new shakiness in his chest and musters up a grin. “Missed my stew too much, didn’t you?”

“Incomparable. Tavvy craved for it every night.”

“Little twerp. That’s good to know.”

“I'm beginning to think he's developing an unhealthy dependence on your food. So, how was your day?”

“Fine. The shop is busy now. Many people are coming in with their Christmas orders and the prepared meats are flying off the shelves. Sometimes I wish that the customers would visit Joe’s instead of mine to take some of the work off me. But then I think about it and I realise I wouldn’t even wish that on my worst enemy.”

“Still trying to grow hair in his bald spot?”

“To no effect.”

“Still sharing one toothbrush between the two of them?”

“It doesn’t exert the imagination to think that.”

“I think I hear a note of victory in your words.”

“Of course. This is a victory. I am victorious. No mercy in the cutthroat industry of meat selling.”

Barely suppressed laughter escapes from Ty’s lips.

“How about you?” Kit can’t wipe the smile off his face. “How was your day?”

“My day.” Ty stretches thoughtfully, causing the hem of his shirt to ride up and expose a sliver of pale skin. Kit’s eyes immediately snap there, then dart away before Ty can turn back to face him. His cheeks warm. “Still trying to solve your case.”

“I bet it’s the longest case you’ve ever taken on.”

“Longest, yeah. And when I first signed on to it, I thought it would be the shortest. It seemed straightforward enough, but now there’s not a trace of that ham anywhere. Not even on dark web forums. I contacted some meat sellers as well and not a single one of them heard of a rogue Jamon Iberico.”

“I suppose whatever’s left of it is in a toilet bowl already.”

“I know.” Then, miserably: “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.”

His brows are knitted together in a disappointed frown. “If I had solved it sooner, it wouldn’t be like this. Now there’s nothing I can go off on. No clues, no leads. I think – the department’s going to close your case.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Kit insists. He moves closer to Ty. “Never liked that ham anyway. It’s 1,500 dollars taken gladly off my shoulders. I hate it’s flavour. Overrated to the max. It’s kind of like The Office of hams. Anyway, it’s my dad’s money, and my dad — ”

“Your dad?”

“My dad —” Kit doesn’t know what he was about to say. He clears his throat. “My dad can take the loss. He doesn’t care about anything.”

“Oh. Where is he now?”

“Somewhere around the world. Jumping from country to country, I bet. Doing business with all sorts of people.”

“And when is he coming back?”

“Don’t know.” Kit wants to say, maybe never. He blows out a long breath and fixes on a grin. “This is why I don’t like talking about him. I never know any of the answers.”

Silence for a while. Then Kit feels warmth enclosing over his hand. Ty has picked it up and is examining it carefully, thumb tracing out the dips and whorls of bone, gliding over rough callouses.

“Where did you get all these cuts from?”

Wondering fingers skim over the nasty little flecks of red littered all over his hand. A strange self-consciousness fills him when he sees his own hand, thick and calloused, rough-hewn from all the manual labour, handled by hands that are beautiful. Long-fingered and slender. So delicately shaped that they look like they have been moulded to life by a sculptor. Kit feels like pulling his hand back.

Quietly, he says, “I nick myself on the knife all the time when I’m preparing meat.”

“Looks like it hurts.”

“You get used to it as time passes. You barely even notice it.”

The mattress sinks where Ty sits down beside him. His presence feels like an immediate balm. Already Kit can feel the day’s strenuousness melt away from him, giving way to a weary calm. He wishes he can bridge that extra distance between them and move closer to him, so that their elbows may touch and their knees may knock. Kit feels like a moth pulled in an inexorable trajectory towards the flickering flame. And Ty. Ty is luminous. His skin is warm and lambent, awash in orange, and Kit thinks that, like this, he can kiss him right now. He really can.

He laughs weakly. Without much thought, he rests his head on Ty’s shoulder. Ty doesn’t move away.

“Are you tired?”

“A little.”

“Do you have to go now?”

“I think so.”

“So soon?”

“I know.”

“Must you go?”

Kit looks up at him. “Must I?”

“No,” Ty says. “You can stay here if you like.”

“Do you want me to?”

There’s a pause. “Yes. I do.”

When can he ever say no to him? So Kit turns his face back down again, staring at place where their hands meet and intertwine.

“Okay. I will.”

*

Kit showers first. He changes into one of Ty’s old shirts and gym shorts, feeling a little shaky at how Ty’s familiar scent surrounds him. It’s vanilla sandalwood, the same smell that lingers on his sheets and is infused into his soap. As he waits for Ty to finish showering, he sits at the foot of his bed, glancing around the room. The door cracks open and Livvy sticks her head in.

There’s a smile on her face. “I was wondering where you were. I didn’t hear you leave.”

“Guess I’m staying the night.”

“I’ll get extra pillows and duvets. _If_ you need them.”

“Goodnight,” Kit says.

She laughs and closes the door. By the time Ty is out of the shower, Livvy has already placed the pillows and blankets to the side. A towel is draped over his head and straight, black hair sticks wetly to his face. His cheeks are rosy from the steam. He looks freshly plucked from Kit’s dreams, too perfect to be something more than just a figment of his imagination. He’s so – he’s so beautiful. They ignore the extra pillows that are set at the foot of the bed. Instead Kit takes one of Ty pillows and the two of them share one blanket. At first, Kit lies down so close to the edge of the bed that he very nearly falls off, but then Ty laughs and tells him to come closer, no, _closer_ , Kit, until the length of their arms touch and they can feel the heat of each other’s skin. The two of them stare up at the ceiling, saying nothing, doing nothing, as if their arms are strapped to their sides, unable to move. They let the silence fill up the space. Two sets of breaths. Two chests, rising and falling. Then, slowly, someone’s hand finds the other person’s. Fingers intertwine. And really, that’s all it is.

**Author's Note:**

> kit as unsteady and insecure, ty as confident and self-assured. ah cinematic parallels
> 
> tumblr @ christopherslightwood
> 
> likes and comments appreciated!!


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